In a historic moment on 25 February, Malaysia’s Federal Court ruled a state law, which allows punishment for “unnatural sex” (including consensual same-sex conduct), as unconstitutional. Though Section 377 of the Penal Code – a British colonial-era law that criminalises same-sex relations with a maximum 20-year jail sentence – remains untouched, the ruling has been welcomed by those in the LGBTQ+ community who have long faced persecution from state religious enforcement agencies.
Three years ago, in November 2018, 11 men were arrested in the central Selangor state on suspicion of attempting sexual intercourse with one another. Five of the 11 men have since pleaded guilty, with each being sentenced to jail, receiving six strokes of the cane, and charged multiple fines. However, part of that group was a 35-year-old Muslim man, whose identity has been withheld at the request of his lawyers. In 2019, with the help of human rights lawyers and organisations in Malaysia,
DEVELOPERS may not be in such a rush to collect booking fees in the future following a recent Federal Court ruling that not only is such a practice expressly prohibited by the law, but perhaps more crucially, that the calculation for late delivery of a house commences from the date a booking fee is paid, and not when the sale and purchase agreement (SPA) is signed.
Commenting on the recent landmark ruling, legal experts say developers will likely be more cautious about collecting a booking fee or initial payment on a house as this would be considered illegal. Furthermore, they expect new residential SPAs to be signed only when developers are genuinely ready to commence a project, a move that could potentially deter them from building too many houses unless there is strong demand and help to reduce the significant property glut (see accompanying story, “What should developers do moving forward?”).